Colorado Amendment 64 brings new frontier

With still more questions than answers, Larimer County and the state are trying to figure out how to regulate a drug still illegal under federal law

By Jessica Maher Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
12/18/2012 06:42:42 PM MST

Last week's passage of Amendment 64 into the Colorado constitution provided some of the guidance that local law enforcement had been waiting for, but officials are still working through the transition to legalized marijuana.

It is now legal in Larimer County -- along with the rest of the state -- for people over 21 years old to possess less than 1 ounce of marijuana, but officials said it's not as cut and dry as that.

"My frustration is that when a constitutional amendment comes in that's intended to change a variety of statutes before there's a chance to come back and rewrite them, there is some confusion," Larimer County Justin Smith said.

Officially legal

Soon after Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment 64 to legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana for recreational purposes in November, some law enforcement agencies across the state -- including police officials in Boulder County -- ceased issuing marijuana-possession citations for conditions covered by new law.

Officials in Larimer County, however, elected to wait until it was made official. That happened last week when Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a proclamation to place the amendment into the constitution.

Since then, local officers have changed the way they issued citations for marijuana-related offenses.

"We put a message out to our staff with guidelines that anyone over the age of 21 is able to possess less than 1 ounce of marijuana," Loveland Police Chief Luke Hecker said.

Those are the general guidelines of the law, which also dictates that open and public consumption of marijuana remains illegal. Smith said that the amendment has provided a measuring stick for officers, but there are still some gray areas and aspects of the law that are not well-defined, for example what exactly constitutes as a public place.

Deputies also have an issue with the amount that is legal, Smith said. In the field, they don't currently have a way to accurately measure what's 1 ounce and what's just over.

"We're waiting for some guidance on those things," he said. "It's going to be a little bit of a sticky period right now."

New Territory

Larimer County District Attorney Larry Abrahamson is among those who have the responsibility of sorting through some of the unanswered questions of Amendment 64. He's a member of the taskforce appointed by Hickenlooper to determine how to regulate a drug that is still illegal under federal law.

"There's a lot of things within the amendment that have to be worked out, but right now if they possess less than 1 ounce of in the privacy of their own home then they are not in violation of the law," Abrahamson said.

The task force will also tackle another unknown issue that law enforcement personnel are waiting for guidance on: the legal limit a person can have in their system while driving.

So far, Hecker said enforcement of the new law has gone smoothly in the department, but the most significant question mark right now relates to the use of drug-sniffing K-9s. Most recently, the dogs had access to open-air sniffs and if they detected the presence of drugs, (they don't differentiate between marijuana and other drugs), it gave officers cause to look inside the vehicle.

"It creates this conflict between what has been allowable under the law and now what's allowable," Hecker said. "We have been working with our K-9 officers on seeking a different application for the use of our dogs."

The Loveland Police Department have released guidelines of those aspects of the law that are known and that Hecker said people should be aware of: possession of drug paraphernalia other than marijuana paraphernalia is still illegal and so is the sale and purchase of the drug.

It is now legal for people 21 and older to grow up to six marijuana plants and for one adult to give marijuana to another adult.

"We're just on the frontier of all the impacts that this amendment is going to have, some intended and some unintended," he said.

While the Larimer County District Attorney's Office will no longer prosecute marijuana violations less than 1 ounce, Abrahamson said people charged before the law took effect will still have to go to court for those offenses. The violations will be handled on a case-by-case basis, he said.

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